California State College’s fall 2025 headcount ticked up 4,000 college students in contrast with this time final 12 months, because of in-state pupil will increase that outpaced a smaller drop in out-of-state and worldwide enrollment, preliminary knowledge launched by the system present.
That progress quantities to lower than a share level improve at CSU, bringing the full throughout the 22-campus system to about 465,000 college students.
The preliminary figures are welcome information after a major enrollment downturn following the COVID-19 pandemic. However considerations stay that the Trump administration’s immigration insurance policies could stifle worldwide enrollment or discourage undocumented or mixed-status college students from making use of for monetary support and going to school.
CSU reported a roughly 1,300-student lower in out-of-state headcount. A CSU spokesperson mentioned knowledge on worldwide pupil enrollment weren’t but out there.
An evaluation launched by NAFSA, the affiliation of worldwide educators, predicts a 30% to 40% decline in new worldwide pupil enrollment throughout the U.S. due to a earlier pause in visa interviews by the Trump administration and different traits which may maintain away overseas candidates. The California Scholar Help Fee reported in June that monetary support functions for blended immigration standing and undocumented highschool seniors have been down within the 2025-26 cycle.
Regardless of these headwinds, the early knowledge counsel that complete headcount CSU-wide has continued a gradual restoration from the pandemic even because it stays beneath its 2020 peak. The system’s general progress masks an uneven enrollment sample round CSU, as among the state universities expanded their pupil our bodies during the last decade whereas different campuses shrank.
CSU expects to launch closing fall 2025 enrollment knowledge in October. A full accounting of campus-by-campus figures sometimes comes later within the time period.
CSU credited a part of this 12 months’s general improve to a Riverside County pilot program, wherein the college system alerted qualifying highschool college students that they’d been robotically admitted to attend their selection of 10 CSUs. The pilot gave first-year enrollment from Riverside County excessive colleges a 6% increase in contrast with 2024, in accordance with CSU.
The college system additionally reported will increase amongst California residents, up by greater than 5,300, and undergraduate switch college students, up by greater than 1,000.
DiPierro is a reporter for EdSource, a nonprofit, nonpartisan journalism group overlaying training in California.
